Four years after the death of Argentine football legend Diego Maradona, seven healthcare professionals will go on trial next week accused of negligence during his final days.
More than 100 witnesses, including members of Maradona’s family and doctors who tended to him down the years, will take the stand over the course of the four-month trial, which starts Tuesday in the Buenos Aires suburb of San Isidro.
The seven defendants risk between eight and 25 years in jail if convicted.
Diego Armando Maradona died on 25 November 2020 at the age of 60 while recovering from brain surgery for a blood clot, after decades battling cocaine and alcohol addictions.
He was found dead in bed in a rented house in an exclusive Buenos Aires neighborhood where he was brought after being discharged from hospital two weeks after surgery.
He was found to have died of a heart attack.
The night nurse said he had seen some “warning signs” but had “received orders not to wake him up.”
Maradona’s death, which came in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic, plunged Argentina into deep mourning.
Tens of thousands of people queued to bid farewell to him as his body lay in state in the presidential palace.
Neurosurgeon Leopoldo Luque, psychiatrist Agustina Cosachov, psychologist Carlos Diaz, medical coordinator Nancy Forlini, nursing coordinator Mariano Perroni, doctor Pedro Pablo Di Spagna and nurse Ricardo Almiro will all stand trial next week, while another nurse, Gisela Dahiana Madrid, asked to be tried by jury separately.
Prosecutors have accused the medical professionals of providing “reckless” and “deficient” home treatment to Maradona, alleging he was abandoned to his fate for a “prolonged, agonizing period” before his death.
A panel of 20 medical experts convened by Argentina’s public prosecutor concluded in 2021 that Maradona “would have had a better chance of survival” with adequate treatment in an appropriate medical facility.
The investigating magistrate in the case said each of the accused played a role in the events.
The accused all deny any responsibility in the star’s death.
Vadim Mischanchuk, lawyer for the psychiatrist Cosachov, said he was very optimistic of an acquittal given that his client was in charge of Maradona’s mental rather than physical health.
Maradona’s family claim that leaked audio and text messages show that the star’s health was in imminent danger, Mario Baudry, a lawyer for Maradona’s son Dieguito, said.
He said that the messages showed the medical team’s strategy was to try to ensure that Diego’s daughters did not intervene “because if they did, they (the medical staff) would lose their money.”
Maradona is immortalized in countless murals, statues and exhibitions across Argentina, as well as in the tattoos sported by his legions of fans.
He will also soon have a mausoleum on a 1,000-square-metre site in the heart of Buenos Aires.
“We want our father to be close to the love of the people,” his daughter Dalma Maradona said in a video presentation of the site, which is expected to receive up to a million visitors a year and will be free of charge for Argentines.
